Geolette Marie Esguerra

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French Actress Garance Marillier

Garance Marillier, at only 27, is already regarded as one of those &quot;Next Generation&quot; French actresses that we should expect the world from. It is amazing that her breakout role happened in 2016, when she was 18, and took on the lead role in Julia Ducournau’s Raw (in original French: Grave). It is a multi-awarded, coming-of-age body-horror drama; Garance portrayed Justine, a lifelong vegetarian who enters veterinary school, only to discover her long-repressed craving for blood-laced meat and for raw human flesh. My eldest son Quintin swears by this film, calling it one of the best body horror movie journeys to watch.<div> </div><div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1764414790982Metro.Style Grave.jpg" style="width:800px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="800"/>Garance in Julia Ducournau’s Raw (in original French: Grave)During this 28th French Film Festival Manila, Garance was our guest of honor, and at 27, was referred to by French Ambassador Marie Fontanel as the Festival’s ‘Godmother’. Having just attended similar French Film Festivals in Hong Kong and Singapore, Garance was happy to say she’s spending the most number of days here in Manila, and was super-pleased about that, enjoying her time here. She visited the UP Film Institute on Wednesday, November 26, for a screening of the sports biopic Marinette and the short film, Favours.</div><div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1764414856802image3 (3).jpeg" style="width:800px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="800"/>Garance with Ambassador Marie FontanelYou would be hard-pressed to ask for more diverse roles to showcase. In Marinette, she’s Marinette Pichon, the first French female football player to play professional soccer in the USA, and has been a strident champion for women’s rights in sports, and in gender choices and inclusivity. In Favours, Garance plays a young woman who may be trying to give her baby away at a train station. She pleads her case, insisting the child was left with her by a mother who vanished. In just ten minutes, she demonstrates the sad plight of unwanted pregnancies and of mothers who can’t cope with raising their own child.</div><div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1764414929523image5 (3).jpeg" style="width:800px;display:block" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/>Post-screening of MarinetteWe have a quiet interview over lunch at Cochi BGC, and Garance loves our laing—the spicier the better—the chicharon bulaklak, and the pancit molo soup. She enjoys the cochinillo and kare-kare, but it’s the laing she declares as her favorite!</div><div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1764415289381Garance in BGC.jpeg" style="width:800px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/>Garance in Manila</div>I ask if it’s a coincidence that she’s been working with so many women directors—with Julia Ducournau in Raw and Titane, with Alice Winocour in Couture (which stars Angelina Jolie and opened this year’s QCinema and the French Film Festival’s Gala Night), and with the Filipina-Canadian director Marianne Métivier in Elsewhere At Night. Garance smiles and says it has been a sheer coincidence, but a happy one. She’s all for more complex women’s roles; as traditionally, those kinds of complex roles would be for the leading man in a film.<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1764415035463image7 (2).jpeg" style="width:800px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/>Garance at the French galaPersonally, Garance is happy to work with male or female directors, but does recognize how women directors today are finding new ways to tell stories, and how they are more sensitive to these complex women roles. Whether at Cannes, Berlin, Venice, or Toronto, we witness how so many women directors, over the last decade, are winning the top prizes for their stellar work and sensitive storytelling. If this is going to be labeled Feminism in Cinema, then Garance is all for it and feels there’s still so much more to accomplish.</div>Just the other week, the French version of our Film Development Council of the Philippines came out with a report that had rather disturbing news. In France, 2025 will see the lowest number of films released by women directors since 2019. It’s a paradox, as so many of the awarded films are by women; and yet, they can’t seem to get the financing and green lights for their projects. In this day and age, it would seem there’s still a chauvinistic system in place when it comes to bankrolling French films.<div>As for who the directors Garance would love to work with, she reserves a special mention for David Lynch, stating she is sad that he passed away early this year. The other one Garance calls out is Wong Kar-Wai, citing his In the Mood for Love as one of her favorites.<img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1764416473471Screenshot 2025-11-29 at 7.40.46 PM.png" style="width:800px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/></div>Her favorite actresses would be Isabelle Huppert, Juliette Binoche, and Marion Cotillard. And if talking contemporaries, she likes her fellow &quot;Next Gen&quot; Rachel Sennott of Shiva Baby, and Eva Victor of Sorry, Baby. In fact, she admires that whole concept of writing, directing, and acting in one film, and sees it as a path she’d eventually like to explore as well.When we talk of film genres, Garance lets loose the ironic confession that she scares easily, and so has not been a great fan of horror films. But she does appreciate the new direction that films in this genre have taken of late. She admires how narrative and back story, plus strong characters, now populate the genre, and she says she’d like to finish watching Sinners, and has heard great things about Weapons. She admires what she saw of Sinners for its representation and mentions what Simu Liu was saying earlier in the week, decrying the ‘backslide’ of Asian representation in Hollywood films.Garance grew up in Paris, in the 20th arrondissement of Belleville. Her father is a musician who actually plays the gamelan, the traditional Indonesian percussion ‘orchestra’. Belleville is known for being multi-cultural and a foodie hot spot, so Garance thinks her appreciation for different global cuisines comes from growing up in that neighborhood. She’s the youngest of three and was a child actor. She actually worked with Julia Ducournau on a TV film when she was 11, and it was that experience that had Julia singling her out for Raw seven years later.As for her advice to aspiring young actresses, Garance lets loose in a charming, heavily accented English; but from what I picked up, she says you don’t need to ask permission to pursue that dream. You get the education, so you have the right foundation; but then you watch as many films as you can, so that you appreciate what’s out there, in order to forge your own path.

From Raw's body horror to 'godmother' of French cinema, 
Garance Marillier on complex roles and global Filipino cuisine

From Raw's body horror to 'godmother' of French cinema, Garance Marillier on complex roles and global Filipino cuisine

Metro Exclusive: French Actress Garance Marillier on Complex Roles and Filipino Food

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Metro Exclusive: French Actress Garance Marillier on Complex Roles and Filipino Food

Philip Cu Unjieng

Published Nov 29, 2025 08:10 PM PHT

Read More:

Garance Marillier

French actress

Raw

Julia Ducournau

French Film Festival Manila

Marinette Pichon

Women's rights

Complex women's roles

Feminism in Cinema

David Lynch

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